Gutsyke’s tongue hit the air again. “About them guns you was going to pay us off with...”
“You didn’t do the job. We took the three that are gone. There are two more out there.”
“Give me them guns and we’ll finish it.”
“No. Finish it, you’ll get the guns.”
Gutsyke’s tongue came out again. He was scared. “I had sixteen men this morning. Now I got three counting me. Word gets around, I’m a dead man. I got enemies.”
“We all have enemies. You want the equalizer, take out those women.”
Gutsyke tongued the air steadily.
Four moved slowly in the darkness, concentrating on the men Crash had brought to back his play. The rearguard had moved up a little but was not close enough to be a factor. The other two...
Gutsyke said, “You don’t hand them over now, I’ll take them.”
Five chuckled. “You were right, Crash. You’re a dead man.”
Four took the backing pair with a burst, then put one into Gutsyke’s spine...
... as two bolts ripped out of the darkness, striking Shike and Five.
Shit! That damned Lieutenant.
The third bolt hit her as she brought her weapon around. It was maybe half power. It hurt like hell but it did not put her down. She let the fucker have all thirty-eight rounds left in the hairsplitter.
— 95 —
Five months after Lieutenant Klass left, Seeker was satisfied that his charge could travel. He approached Blessed Tregesser uncertainly, fearing he could not make his need understood, fearing it would be denied.
The humans surprised him. They spared one of their ships to take him to another system, where they chartered a Volgodon Navigation Traveler for a direct passage to M. Meddinia. They even sent along people to ease friction with the authorities.
The Volgodon Traveler reached M. Meddinia without incident. The old station was almost completely automated, which made for slow handling of what little traffic there was. Sixteen hours passed before Seeker and Amber Soul began their descent to the homeworld she did not remember. Their station’s one shuttle was ancient and quirky and slow, but utterly dependable.
The companions sent by House Tregesser were not themselves strictly human. They were products of Lupo Provik’s secret lab, expendable artifact operatives. A condition of the Traveler’s charter required it to stay at station till it verified the arrival on-planet of its passengers.
As the shuttle entered atmosphere the station’s fusion plant went berserk. Its Q blew. The electromagnetic pulse triggered a device that set off a similar disaster in the Traveler’s power plant.
That double blast vaporized me Traveler and seventy percent of the station.
Lupo Provik had kept his word — while making sure an alien who knew too much would not get back into circulation.
— 96 —
Six months after VII Gemina’s fleet directive, twelve Guardships were involved, six beyond the Rim. At Starbase Tulsa new construction proceeded at capacity, concentrating on fighters and riders.
The methane breathers had not anticipated the utter ferocity of the onslaught, nor the suddenness with which it would come. In the seventh month they regained their balance enough to launch a limited counterstrike.
Six battle groups penetrated Canon space. Four thousand years of Outsider incursions made them predictable. The fleet was ready.
A group headed for Starbase found a Guardship waiting off the Barbican, supported by a quadruple complement of secondaries.
A group for D. Zimplica broke off the Web into a tunnel of death maintained by secondaries ferried in earlier.
Of the six groups only one succeeded. Only a few ships survived to scurry home.
— 97 —
Jo crawled out of the ruins the next morning, squandering her reserves in order to reach AnyKaat before she passed out again.
She made it.
“What the hell happened, Jo? You’re all torn to shit.”
“Ricochets. She never hit me solid.”
“Could have fooled me. She? Who?”
“Provik’s girlfriend. They were the other two. I got them all. We’re safe.”
AnyKaat laughed sickly. “Right. Two women shot to hell in a place where women are bitches and bitches are commercial property.”
Jo did not argue. “Can you walk? They had a lot of good stuff. If we don’t grab it, somebody else will. And maybe use it on us.”
“I’ll manage.”
She did. The stuff was there. But what had become of the bodies?
— 98 —
When they brought Four in, she still had not recovered physically or mentally. The family, now including Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten, and a new Three, took her information in an update and tried to remove her pain.
Afterward, Two told Lupo, “Blessed will be upset about Shike getting shot up.”
“That was the risk he took, sending him out. But he’ll patch up. I’ve seen Troqwai fix worse.”
“You want to send someone to see if that AnyKaat woman survived?”
“No. If she did, she won’t last. What we need to worry about is Four’s trauma.”
Two winced. No one would say it, or even wanted to think it, but the family had to decide if Four had been too badly damaged to be taken back. The meld had been agony. Four was convinced her ineptitude had killed Three and Five.
Two said, “It would have to be unanimous.”
However much it might hurt, Lupo could not imagine his family being less than unanimous about anything.
— 99 —
WarAvocat felt old and tired. Was it time to step down?
VII Gemina had fortress-busting down to a mechanical routine. But each new system threw up a more hysterical defense. Nowadays he needed another two Guardships backing him.
He stared at a viewscreen showing a fortress he meant to kill. It was the biggest yet. And only one of five. The system was a sector capital.
VII Gemina came to rest with respect to its target. “Project the tube,” WarAvocat directed.
Screen generators strained to produce a shaped field. Twelve modified riders moved into the expanding bubble, feeding it with their own shaped-shield generators till it expanded into a tunnel with its small end firmly against the fortress’s screen.
“Loose the Hellspinners.”
Hellspinners preferred the path of least resistance.
The Twist Masters cut loose. Hellspinners tumbled down the funnel and collided with the enemy screen. They gnawed through. After the Hellspinners splattered the fortress for several minutes WarAvocat introduced a pulse into their flow. Axial cannon CT shells flew. After those opened a pathway, thermonuclears followed, killing the fortress’s shield.
WarAvocat moved to the next fortress. The other Guardships finished the first with their Hellspinners.
Systematic. Routine. Too much time left to think about the chain of chance that had brought VII Gemina here, point ship in a war no one understood but that looked likely to persist for years. VI Adjutrix’s data had been incomplete.
There were a hundred gas giants, as reported, but VI Adjutrix had failed to mention the other species the colonial creatures dominated.
The Guardships focused on the methane breathers, but the other side’s dying was done by subject species. WarAvocat hoped that with continued fleet successes the subject races would shift allegiances.
All this because VII Gemina had stumbled over a krekelen shapechanger.
WarAvocat smiled gently. Some House had set that up hoping to grab a Guardship. They had enlisted Outside help without realizing what they were getting. They would have lost VII Gemina instantly had they taken it.
The artifact crossed his thoughts. What had become of her? Had Haget caught the Ku? The Ku haunted him.
The new Haget was a staff officer with one of the ridership squadrons. Klass was in the pits, an apprentice Twist Master. The civilians were in storage.
Space behind VII Gemina
turned purplish. The barrage pounding the fortress had sparked a self-sustaining Hellspinner reaction.
So damned tired. He really should consider stepping down.
— 100 —
Lupo asked, “Are you stupid, Szydlow?”
The Canon legate dropped the hand he had begun to extend.
“Five months ago we told you you would be given dockage only if you invoked Article Ninety-One. You did. But Ninety-One wasn’t written to support the ambitions of itinerant bureaucrats. We’ve soaked you the limit for dockage and service fees, and we’ve refused you exit from your Traveler. No one will take your calls.”
Szydlow sputtered.
“Don’t sit down. I didn’t invite you. We haven’t been subtle. We don’t want what you’re selling. Go away. Stop taking up dock space. Your credentials have been rejected. You have no immunity. If I offed you, the Chair would pardon me.” Lupo produced a hairsplitter. “Whump. The asshole quotient of the universe drops a point. Goodbye, Szydlow.”
“I shouldn’t have threatened him. I don’t let people provoke me.”
The Valerena said, “You don’t scare his kind with threats. You frame them for child molesting. Bad press deflects career trajectories and destroys retirement points.”
“Hoo! Should have thought of that. Frame him, try him, give him twenty years on a labor gang. I’ll do it if he makes a pest of himself.”
A year fled. Canon legate Szydlow returned to Capitola Primagenia. An expected tide of commerce raiders came and receded. The War had no impact on the lives of most people and little upon commerce. House Tregesser noticed it because Provik spent fortunes keeping track.
He suspected the Guardship fleet had gotten bogged down. The Ku agreed. Big doings near Starbase suggested the deadlock would be broken soon.
Then three Outsider humans walked into Lupo’s office.
He had expected that since VII Gemina issued its fleet directive.
He gathered the usual group. Blessed brought a recovered Cable Shike and had his new Other listen in.
Two of the Outsiders were lean, slight, with narrow skulls. Their features were sharp. They were dusky. Their hair was a glossy black. They wore it identically. Their eyes were a startling blue. They wore black. They seemed emotionless. Lupo guessed them to be in their thirties.
The third man, twenty years older, shared their height, hair color, and eyes, but weighed more. His clothing was stark but would have drawn second glances nowhere in Canon.
Two announced him as “Gif the Hand, Voice Appointive to the Godspeakers of the Shadowed Way, Master of A Hundred Torches.” When Lupo lifted an eyebrow, she added, “Don’t ask me. The clown said to introduce him that way.”
Gif the Et Cetera snapped, “You’re an arrogant and obstreperous breed.” His speech had an odd cadence. “The Godspeakers directed that you be disabused of false notions of who is master.”
Those two men were fast.
Two shot one through the arm. The Ku caught the other by the back of the neck, lifted him overhead. Cable Shike placed the snout of a hairsplitter under Gif’s chin. Two’s man looked more astonished than hurt. She gestured for him to get down on his face. He refused.
She blew his brains out.
Lupo said, “Mind telling me what other lessons you have, Gif?”
Gif looked at the corpse. “That’s impossible.”
“If you say so. So. The Guardships are kicking butt and they’re getting desperate out yon. They sneaked you in to twist our arms.”
“Grace of the Godspeakers, the Guardships have been stopped. The counterattack will begin soon.”
“The Godspeakers those things that look like a puddle of raw guts?”
“Soon you will speak of them in pure terror.”
“I doubt it. Your bosses smell the fleet getting ready for the killing push, which is why you’re here. But House Tregesser won’t go down with you.”
“You have no choice. There’s your role in the ambush of three Guardships.”
“Right. And if we help we’ll harvest wonderful rewards.”
“Yes.”
“Liar. Gif, your side won’t win. Unless I let it.”
Gif gave him a bug-eyed look.
“The Guardships are going to squish those gut piles till there aren’t any left. Then they’ll stomp whoever worked for them. You ought to be trying to cut a deal with the fleet.”
“You are an enemy of the Guardships.”
“Sure. And before that I’m an agent of House Tregesser. You’re only offering a chance to trade an unpleasant status for something worse. Why do you think we’d be willing? Two, take friend Gif to Research. Send somebody to clean up.”
Two left. The Valerena said, “You’re sure about this?”
“It was a high risk mission for them. So on the record they didn’t get through. Right? It’ll be months before they’re sure the mission failed.”
Events Outside prevented the appearance of another mission for a year and a month. The second followed the routine of the first. Tregesser security invaded the Hauler that brought the envoys. A methane breather was found in what should have been a refrigerated hold. They killed it. There were witnesses. The incident had to be reported.
The raids started a month later. Every Tregesser system suffered at least one. A new level of pressure. None of the raids did serious damage. The Ku had had two years to prepare.
— 101 —
VII Gemina took no part in the operation that broke the deadlock. That was the greatest strike ever launched. Ten Guardships assailed the world where the methane breathers had evolved.
They thought highly of it. They shielded it with an unimaginable array of war machines. It took the Guardships six months to clear those and sterilize the planet.
Till then no Guardship had been lost. In that struggle seven perished.
In the end, Guardship soldiers stormed and captured a huge orbital fortress. They degraded its orbit. Four Guardships hammered it with Hellspinners till a self-sustaining reaction started. They let it go down to start a world afire.
There were no offers of surrender, no pleas for an armistice. Plainly, the struggle would go on for years.
— 102 —
Jo and AnyKaat made themselves Immunes, of sorts, by virtue of their weapons and willingness to use them. But even after two years they dared not let one another out of sight.
Jo felt tired, beaten down. In the beginning they had wanted to acquire wealth enough to get off and buy passage to P. Jaksonica, where AnyKaat could lever them back into the real universe. That had cracked up on the realities of Merod Schene. They had lowered their aim again and again. Now when the rare shuttle landed, they went out to see if they could get a message to AnyKaat’s mother.
Jo’s spirits were at low ebb. And for months she had been having nightmares about Seeker — or something alien — invading her mind whenever she slept.
She was afraid she was cracking.
— 103 —
It took Seeker a long time with Amber Soul to grasp the meaning of his experiences among the humans. And even she, who had been so long among them that she could not now fit among her own, did not comprehend them well.
They rewrote the faces of worlds.
They were an abomination in the eye of the universe, yet they had brought to this sand grain something unknown before their advent, the unyielding rule of law.
Their law did not always make sense. It was skewed to the advantage of the few. But it was as inflexible and predictable as any natural law and could no more be bent or twisted.
In their way, the humans were into the afternoon of their time, waiting for the twilight, but they had created this one great thing, this bubble of order and peace that hung like a jewel upon the tumultuous Web. With Chaos’s own sword they chastised it, striking off its heads one by one, each time wresting from Chaos another shadow-thin slice of its dreadful empire.
There was a darkness upon the Web. It was a shadow of horror that l
eft the strands thrumming with pain. It was an evil risen from the heart of Chaos to challenge the march of law. There was grave concern among the elders. They petitioned Seeker to burden himself with separation again.
Strange, strange Amber Soul begged to share his quest.
The Lieutenant Klass had become like one of the Lost Children, abandoned somewhere on the vastness of the Web, without lightmarks to sign the way to her. Could he find her while it mattered? The thread they had spun between them had been slender.
His people activated the signal that would alert a visitor to the system that there were passengers to collect.
— 104 —
Turtle came and went as he pleased. He was a trusted agent of the House creating a planetary defense.
Like it or not, he was a public figure and object of debate. He headed a band of aliens and artifacts numbering a hundred. Their presence in positions of trust caused grumbling.
The Directors had a grudge. The Chair no longer consulted them in any but the most mundane business. They knew nothing of its secret agendas. But they did know snakes were stirring. The Ku’s gang and Provik’s security forces were everywhere. Provik’s monetary demands gnawed the belly out of the House’s profitability.
Turtle was more content than he had been since leading the Dire Radiant. His moral cavils bent easily in the wind of a need to do what he had been fashioned to do.
The legacies of Valerena Tregesser included the Isle of Ise, for which Blessed had no time or love. That had become Turtle’s place. There he heard a thousand echoes of childhood. He went there with Midnight, his frequent companion lately. Blessed was trying to fulfill an obligation by providing himself with an heir.
“I spent my first dozen years in a place like this,” Turtle told Midnight. They had climbed to the pinnacle of a basaltic eminence hanging a hundred meters above a lapis lazuli sea. Below, a band of ivory sand sketched the limits of the sea. The sand had been imported for Valerena.